Caramelized Onion Pasta

All you need for this outrageously tasty dinner is a bag of onions, a couple cloves of garlic, some dried pasta, and cheese. Caramelizing sliced onions in a little butter and olive oil turns them sweet and yielding, almost luscious. Pasta water and Parmesan do double duty, adding salt and depth while the creamy sauce forms.

Preparation

Heat oil and butter in a large heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium until butter is melted. Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until very tender and deeply golden brown, about 30 minutes. (Stop before the onions become dry and shriveled.) Add red pepper flakes (if using) and 1 1/2 tsp. salt. Remove pot from heat.

Add pasta and 1 cup pasta cooking liquid to onion mixture and stir to combine. Add a small handful of cheese and stir until melted. Repeat with remaining cheese, adding more pasta cooking liquid as needed to create a glossy sauce that coats the pasta. Stir in parsley (if using).

Divide pasta among bowls. Top with Parmesan, parsley, and a few cranks of pepper.

Made this with one addition. I sauteed some bacon cut into lardons first and then added a little olive oil and cooked the onions in the bacon fat and oil. I added the bacon back in after mixing the pasta with the sauce and it was fantastic. Go easy on the salt due to the cheese and bacon here but very very good. Also can use pancetta.

This pasta dish was a-MAZINGLY delicious! We all loved it. Really took my time caramelizing the onions to their sweet end. The only change I made was to add 1/2 tsp Calabrian chili paste instead of the pepper flakes (ho boy, be careful with that stuff!!). Served with sauteed kale. This recipe is in our rotation!

So this was forwarded to me by my sister telling me to try it...I did. Turned out ABSOLUTELY delicious...wife n I both loved it!
Not sure I was stunned more by the flavor or the fact, that in all my years, I've never thought to incorporate the carmelized onions into a pasta dish?!?!?
For those that suggested it was bland... One or more of several things went wrong...
1) not enough onions
2) didnt actually 'carmalize' the onions
3) not enough Parmesan
4) didn't use a quality Parmesan
5) didn't use enough water to create the creaminess
6) diluted flavor with too much pasta water
Seriously give it another try...this became my favorite white pasta surpassing 'aglia, oglio e pepperoncino' and 'pasta Alla carbonara'.
Got so excited I wrote my first review!
Thanks
Tastebud

This had so much promise but turned out bland. Adding all that pasta water watered down the caramelized onions and like the previous reviewer said, it just tasted like pasta and onions. It would’ve been better to make a pasta with a light sauce and then fold the onions and cheese in.

Bland dish and the house reeked of onions for a week. Might try a similar recipe with fewer onions and the addition of pancetta, cherry tomatoes or mushrooms somewhere in there - but at that point it's a whole new recipe.

Exceptional. This is the best meal I've had in a while. Made per the recipe with the exception of adding basil at the end instead of parsley and I added some grape tomatoes for the last 5 minutes of cooking the onions. We could not stop talking about how good this was throughout the meal.

what a fantastic recipe! here's how i'm going to make it mine: schmaltz instead of olive oil, basil pesto or basil paste instead of parsley (i'm out of fresh herbs). everything else remains the same ... except for the pasta: does it have to be a long pasta? i'm wondering if i could sub something like, e.g., orecchiette, penne rigate, rigatoni, or the like? in which case, i'd probably dice the onions rather than slicing them.
i do a low-and-slow stovetop onion gravy with a heavy dose of sweet paprika that i mix with matzoh balls that are then baked in a casserole dish for extra crispness and to reheat; the next time i make this, i'm going to use smoked instead of sweet paprika.

Whoa! I made this with homemade fettuccine as a side dish to grilled pork chops. So good, so easy! (I did the onions in the pressure cooker; works like a charm). My spouse said he has to kick something off the top ten list to make room.